I work in private equity and here's what critics usually get wrong

Not defending everything in the industry — there are genuine problems. But the public critique is often wrong in ways that make it less likely to produce useful reform. **What critics get wrong:** 1. 'PE strips assets and kills companies.' The failure rate is higher than for companies generally, but PE-backed companies also grow employment and investment faster during the upturn. Selection bias: PE buys struggling companies, which would have failed at a high rate anyway. 2. 'Fees extract value from LPs.' Institutional LPs (pension funds, endowments) have decades of return data; they're not being tricked. Net returns to LPs are contested but on average close to or slightly above public market equivalents — with higher dispersion. **What critics get right:** 1. Healthcare and housing PE are genuinely concerning because market discipline doesn't operate normally — patients and tenants don't choose their provider under duress. 2. The carried interest tax treatment is hard to defend on first principles. 3. Debt load risk is real and gets socialised when it goes wrong (employee pensions, supplier credit).